Breastfeeding

According to the report, the rate of mothers who exclusively breastfed their babies BY CHOICE was 70% – which is just barely above the state average but over 20 points below the hospital with the highest rate.

The rate of mothers who exclusively breastfed was 64%. Meaning 64% of the mothers who indicated no previous choice to breastfeed their babies did so exclusively – no formula. However, out of all the mothers who wanted to breastfeed exclusively, only 70% did so. For some reason, 3 out of 10 mothers who wanted to breastfeed didn’t.

The breastfeeding numbers exclude babies who were not able to breastfeed for medical reasons, such as being admitted to the NICU. The total number of eligible patients included who breastfed exclusively whether or not by choice was 1,730.

Elective Delivery

An elective delivery is performed for a nonmedical reason. Some nonmedical reasons include wanting to schedule the birth of the baby on a specific date or living far away from the hospital. Some women request delivery because they are uncomfortable in the last weeks of pregnancy. Some women request a cesarean delivery because they fear vaginal birth.

If we read the data correctly, we’re to believe that the number of women who had an elected delivery (cesarean, induction, etc) for absolutely no medical reason is zero. The report states the elective delivery rate is 0%. The total number of eligible patients included who were included in the elective delivery rates was 124.

What’s Missing?

The AV hospital “welcomes more than 5,400 babies a year through its Women & Infants Pavilion” yet only 124 of those were eligible patients for an elective delivery. I’m not sure exactly what the implications are but it would appear that for some reason over 5,200 women were not included in those numbers.

Additionally, out of 5,400 babies welcomed at the hospital, only 1,730 were included in the breastfeeding data. Again, the breastfeeding data does not include babies who were not able to breastfeed for some medical reason. That leaves 3,670 babies, or 68%, who were not able to excursively breastfeed out of medical concerns.

2 Comments

Andrea Randenberg
on March 3, 2016 at 3:51 pm

Unfortunately this post contains vast amounts of misleading and erroneous information, much of which was likely taken out of context. As a longtime member of the labor and delivery team at Antelope Valley Hospital (AVH), I would like to set the record straight. While there are many points to refute, I’ll stick to the most grievous.

First, it is important to understand that the data is based upon a sample of the population, not every delivery. So when it says that 1,730 women were included in the breastfeeding data, it is because of the size of the sample.

Much of your information in the breastfeeding section was greatly taken out of context as you attempted to summarize the data, which is based on specific Joint Commission measures. The actual breastfeeding statistics at AVH are: 64% of the babies were exclusively breastfed. When the sample population included only those babies whose mothers stated they wanted to breastfeed, 7 out of 10 babies received nothing other than breastmilk during their hospital stay (70% were exclusively breastfed).

Your elective delivery data doesn’t include all of the parameters of this measure. At AVH, no women had an elective delivery at or after 37 weeks’ gestation and prior to 39 weeks’ gestation for non-medical reasons. This is a critical distinction.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss AVH’s practices in the Women & Infants Pavilion. I can assure you that the process to achieve Baby-Friendly status was a long, rigorous and well-deserved one. We are proud of what we have accomplished here at AVH and are confident that we are providing an optimum beginning for the thousands of babies we deliver each year.

Thanks for the clarification that the data was a sample of patients and not the whole. While the report does have a section for footnotes used in identifying the data as a sample, the Joint Commission’s report did not indicate the AV Hospital’s data was actually a sample. While assuming that the remainder of the women who were not included in the sample where unable to breastfeed may be inaccurate, it’s certainly not “egregious” given that the data in the report was obviously mislabeled.

Regarding the elective deliveries, I’m glad to hear that none of the AV Hospital’s patients requested an elective delivery during early term. I didn’t actually collect the elective delivery data so, again, with your insight that too has now been clarified. I agree that is a very critical distinction.

I’m sorry if you took the post to be misleading and out of context; that certainly wasn’t the intention. I implied neither implicitly nor explicitly that the reader should draw any conclusions. I actually tried to make that point transparent by stating that I don’t know what the implications are given the data was provided.

Please trust me when I say that I understand what a big deal it is for the AV Hospital to achieve baby-friendly status. It’s an incredible achievement and I applaud the men and women of the WIP for achieving such high marks. Certainly, there are more breastfeeding support options available to the women and families of the AV than ever before. The hospital, breastfeeding coalition, midwives, lactation consultants lactation educators, childbirth educators, and all the doulas in the valley are doing a wonderful job of getting the information out, which is good for mom and baby.